Mars "Grand" Canyon Star of Dramatic Cosmic Image

Mars canyon star of dramatic cosmic image

www.upi.com...

PARIS, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- A European spacecraft orbiting Mars has captured new images of one of the solar system's most dramatic geological features, scientists say.

Valles Marineris on Mars is a chasm 125 miles wide, more than 6 miles deep and stretching for almost 2,500 miles, making it the largest canyon in the solar system.

It is 10 times longer and five times deeper than Earth's Grand Canyon, a release from the Paris headquarters of the European Space Agency said Monday.

The canyon's formation is likely linked with the formation of the largest volcano in the Solar System, Olympus Mons, scientists said.

Volcanic activity is indicated by the nature of the rocks in the walls of the canyon and the surrounding plains, which were built by successive lava flows, they said.

Strong water flows may have reshaped the chasm after it was formed, since mineralogical evidence collected by orbiting spacecraft, including Mars Express, suggests the terrain was altered by water hundreds of millions of years ago.

Valles Marineris: The Grandest Canyon of All

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I thought this was pretty cool. I didn't see this posted when I used the search function on ATS.

The interesting thing is lava and water flowed to create such a huge canyon on this planet. I wonder what the rover would find if the scientists sent it there to investigate???

Mars will make a great vacation spot one day

reply to post by Skywatcher2011


6 miles deep!!!
At that depth the air pressure would be much higher than at normal levels, and on earth the deeper you go the warmer it gets, so its likely to be warmer at the bottom of the canyon. Maybe it would be a good place to look for life?

reply to post by Skywatcher2011


It is ONLY speculation on the formation of the "scar" running through Mars. The pictures are very nice but it is only a theory (and there is likely no actual research or data on the scar except for pictures) on how it was formed.

I HIGHLY reccomend the following video. It does a great job explaining another seemingly plausible way the canyon was formed. This one of the videos Ive watched that really stands to be monumental in my life.




Here is an ats thread where the electrical theory is discussed. The title is slightly misleading but rest assured there is quality conversation relating to the canyon on mars! Great stuff

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Signals


A star for the laugh I got from that.

reply to post by kyle43


That is a truly amazing video, and is something I have never heard before. It is laid out so well, and seems to be a truly sound, and scientific answer to how the region could have been carved. Thanks for posting that!

reply to post by kyle43


I liked the vid, thanks for posting it

I wonder what could have been big enough to carry enough charge to do that? A passing planet? A gigantic alien ship refueling?

6 miles deep

If I jumped off the edge it would take about 3 minutes to hit the bottom!

reply to post by Skywatcher2011


If Nasa had a brain they would have set Curiosity rover down in the bottom of that canyon. It is pretty obvious if there was water and life it would have been a colection basin for both providing any proof of any life if any on mars.

Just about anywhere in that canyon would yeild more science than all the locations that have landed on to date.

Water runs down hill...duh

Does anyone think for it to be a possibility that aliens siphoned off all the water on MARS but left water on Earth for life to colonize instead? I mean, where else could all the water have gone from the surface on Mars?

Originally posted by Xeven
reply to post by Skywatcher2011

 

If Nasa had a brain they would have set Curiosity rover down in the bottom of that canyon. It is pretty obvious if there was water and life it would have been a colection basin for both providing any proof of any life if any on mars.

Just about anywhere in that canyon would yeild more science than all the locations that have landed on to date.

Water runs down hill...duh

edit on 23-10-2012 by Xeven because: (no reason given)

It is also pretty likely that there was once water in Gale Crater (Curiosity's landing spot), so that's why NASA chose it. I mean, Curiosity already found evidence of an ancient creek bed in Gale Crater.

Prior to Curiosity's launch, orbital analysis (from other NASA probes) of the materials in Gale Crater should an abundance of clay, and clay is known to only form in watery environments -- hence the reason NASA thinks Gale Crater once had water. Also, there are fractures in the higher grounds around Mount Sharp (the mountain in the middle of Gale Crater) and those fractures show signs of being "cemented" by sediment, and the manner in which they are cemented strongly indicates the past presence of water.

That indicates that the water in Gale Crater may have been deep enough to cover those highlands -- which means Gale crater could have once been a huge lake.

Furthermore, orbital pictures showed that there seem to be canyons of exposed sediment on the sides of Mount Sharp -- sediment perhaps laid down when Gale Crater was watery. These exposed sediment layers of strata will probably be accessible by Curiosity, and NASA is planning to explore this strata, which possible were formed by wet sediment in water.


Here are some articles explaining why Gale Crate is such an exciting landing spot in the search to finnd if Mars could have once supported life:

Why Gale Crater?

Why Was Gale Crater Chosen as Mars Rover Landing Site?

Gale Crater FAQ: Mars Landing Spot for Next Rover Explained

Originally posted by Skywatcher2011
Does anyone think for it to be a possibility that aliens siphoned off all the water on MARS but left water on Earth for life to colonize instead?

I mean, where else could all the water have gone from the surface on Mars?

There is still H2O on Mars in frozen form. There is water ice at the ice caps, and water ice clouds in the atmosphere. NASA's Phoenix Lander spotted water ice in 2006 a trench it dug, and even saw what NASA thinks was saline liquid water condensing on the landing struts of the Phoenix lander.

There could still be sub-surface water (or water ice), but most scientists think a lot of the water was stripped away as Mars's atmosphere was stripped away by the solar winds. Mars has only a very weak magnetic field, so there is nothing to protect the solar winds from scouring Mar's atmosphere. One theory says that those solar winds stripped away the atmosphere and the water vapor in it (which could have taken a couple of billion years).

The Sun blasts Mars with charged particles that erode its atmosphere like a desert wind scours the land. Earth's magnetic field shields us from the solar wind, and protects our atmosphere. Unfortunately, Mars lost its shield...

...So, with no magnetic shield to deflect the Sun's particles, the solar wind gradually blew the Martian atmosphere into space. Subsequently, Mars lost 70 to 90% of its water — blasted into space and the rest tied up in rocks.

Another theory says Mars lost its atmosphere because it is too small (with less gravity) to hold onto a thick atmosphere. Without a thick atmosphere, water turns to vapor, and the solar winds can strip it away.

Asphaug has a different explanation. Mars is small; it has one-tenth the mass of Earth. Atmospheric gas molecules move fast — some fast enough to exceed the escape velocity of the planet, especially small planets like Mars. Such gas escaped into space. That's why our Moon lacks an atmosphere; it escapes as it forms.

Another important effect: "small planets are unable to hold onto their atmospheres when subjected to a giant impact." Mars received many such impacts, especially in its early life.

So, here's the simplest explanation of an unsolved mystery: Mars may have been wet and warm once, with a thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere. Being a small planet, though, its gravitational pull was too weak to hold onto its atmosphere. The solar wind may have hastened the departure of the lightest gas — hydrogen — by breaking water into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen. This break down would have also accelerated the loss of water. These combined effects probably explain how Mars lost its atmosphere and water.

Then, without water vapor in the atmosphere to warm the surface, the planet cooled. Water eventually froze. This is why Mars has essentially no liquid water now.

Source:
A Martian mystery: where the water went

I think it is a giant scar from an impact. The impact then caused the martian magma to swell up into those huge volcanoes (inc Mt Olympus). A lot of the magma was eventually expelled from the martian interior, causing the core to cool and stop spinning, which stopped the magnetic field and caused Mars to become this cold and lifeless place.

The Electric Universe followers believe it was caused by a gigantic lightning...

reply to post by wildespace


Are you saying the scar was formed by magma from a volcanic system on Mars? And by impact I assume collision with a meteor/asteroid/comet?

reply to post by kyle43


Nice theory BUT here is the Earth without water/ice



Now what if Mars was like the Earth billions of years ago with an atmosphere with water/ice on the surface, unlike Earth its core cooled quickly it lost protection of its magnetic field and atmosphere the bulk of the water/ice was lost to space and what we see today is similar to the above!

reply to post by kyle43


More like a grazing event by an asteroid (from East to West), which created the scar and caused the magma to jolt in that direction, erupting as volcanoes to the West of the scar.

To me, the Valis Marineris looks way too straight to be caused by natural erosion. Add to that all those big volcanoes to the West of it.

reply to post by wmd_2008


Mars was like Earth in the beginning. Here's a simulation showing how the oceans could have looked like, based on the elevation map: www.marsplanetarium.com...

reply to post by wildespace


Is it possible for a grazing event like that to happen? The scar is 2500 miles long. Im trying to envision your theory but need help visualizing. Have there been other similar events this can be compared to?